The Best of Electric Velocipede
Page 29
With this analysis, I release my appraisal to Aubrick & Wain, Inc.; a copy exists in undisclosed safety-deposit (per appraisal agreement 3821-06, affidavit 3821-b), should a problem arise. All correspondence regarding the appraisal should be routed through Aubrick & Wain, Inc., or its approved agents.
It is my hope that by publishing lot 3821 in this manner, I have aided its perpetuation in a manner that will facilitate new methods by which this fey document can continue its fey business. Let the analyses of those scholars who follow my interest in lot 3821 be, themselves, the first of these new methods.
Collation Formula:
[paper:] various 2o, 4o, 8o, 16o: π2, A-C8, D8(-D7), xA8 [E], xA13 [F], xA4 [G], π2 [$1 signed] 59 leaves, unnumbered [pp. 1-118] 190 mm X 140 mm; 20-23 lines; various type, handscript; body & face, various
Title Page: π2a
Crown, 2o: π2, chain 23-25 mm.; [paper:] large post; [watermark:] horn HRB
HIGHGATE RAG & BONE | An Anonymous Salvage | Willord B. Delby, printer & binder | Pennwick Bindry, Pennwick Ln. 1783
[type:] body 86; face 84 X 3: 5
Binding:
Red calfskin over pasteboards, untooled; 193 mm X 143 mm X 10 mm.; no title; grain relief, .75 mm
Bibliographer’s Notes:
The first two leaves of Lot 3821, An Anonymous Salvage, (identical in composition and measure to the book’s final two) are of a kind with the endpapers, each watermarked with large post’s characteristic horn watermark—in turn imposed with HRB for the Highgate Rag & Bone. Dr. Paulin Gáribe concludes in his chemical analysis that “the endpapers, as well as the first and last two leaves in the book, are made from fibers of varying ages, some as many as two hundred years apart. A great many of the fibers in the paper exhibit signs of having previously carried inks, dyes, or other resins” (cf. appendix ii, introduction). This analysis strengthens the seemingly foregone conclusion that the various documents collated into the book were recovered from a rag-and-bone shop, where, most likely, they would have been rendered unto new paper—as was the case with the documents and fabrics that were recycled into the endpapers. However, Anna Singlest, in her socio-historical analysis (appendix iii), finds no record of there ever having existed either a “Highgate Rag & Bone” or a “Pennwick Bindry.” For that matter, she can find no record of a Pennwick Lane, either. I see nothing untoward in her findings, as any number of people may have called any number of businesses (and the streets upon which they were located) by any number of different names during the period of the book’s collation.
Essentially, Lot 3821 is a collation of documents that perpetuate their own textual (and physical) survival. It is, of course, indeterminable whether the documents were recovered from the shelves of Highgate Rag & Bone by the shop’s owner or by some rag-picking client with a keen eye for bibliographic rarity. While, Dr. Singlest tells us, it would not have been unheard of for such rare and mysterious documents to have found their way into such a shop, it still would have been “highly unlikely,” as the eighteenth-century fascination with “curiosities” would have, most likely, recovered these materials from various auctions and sales of estate before they ever reached a rag-and-bone. Certainly one or two may have slipped past curiosity’s vigilant gaze, but for four to do so, each espousing similarly strange meta-textuality, seems to me a coincidence of the most improbable order. It is more likely that some other as-yet-undetermined agency facilitated the discovery of these documents as a group in what would have been the categorical madness and document-crowding of a rag-and-bone shop’s shelves.
My bibliographic analysis of the individual documents collated in Lot 3821, An Anonymous Salvage, follows below—the collator’s titles are separated from their documents’ analyses in each case by a single, broken rule, excepting the dual pamphlets of “The Humours,” which I present together.
*
Life
Collation:
pot, vellum 8o: A-C8, D8(-D7) [$1 signed] 30 leaves, unnumbered [pp. 1-60]
190 mm X 140 mm (B1a); 20 lines; A-C8, D1a-D6b: French Bastardia; body 122; face 120 X 3: 5
Title Page: A1a
Le Livre de les personnes malades | rappelez-vous à vos voisins | MDLXIV | [image: “Doktor Schnabel von Rom” (“Doctor Beak from Rome”) engraving, Rome 1656, 125 mm X 100 mm (cf. facsimile i)] | Life
[last line handwritten: commensurate with type]
(Facsimile i, “Doktor Schnabel von Rom”)
Bibliographer’s Notes:
This first section of the collection, titled Le Livre de les personnes malades: rappelez-vous vos voisins (The Book of the sick people: remember to your neighbors), by its printer (and “Life” by the overall collection’s later collator), dates from 1564 CE, as evidenced by the Roman numerals on its title page. It is comprised of four octavo gatherings, the last of which is missing its final two leaves, and the title page is printed in unremarkable French Bastardia. The gatherings appear to have been signed by the collator who titled them “Life,” the signatures appearing uniformly on the recto of the first leaf of each gathering. Curiously, however, the vellum has been trimmed to the dimensions of early seventeenth-century pot paper. In my opinion, the work had not one editor but several, each of which added some different innovation as the catalogue came to his concern. The vellum itself is poorly made and heavily wormed. I cite here a portion of Dr. Gáribe’s chemical analysis (cf. appendix ii, report 1A):
[T]he calfskin appears to have been inadequately limed prior to being stretched, facilitating, it would seem, varying microbial infestations. Furthermore, the worming patterns in the pages are consistent with those attributed to the common book louse (Trogium pulsatorium), suggesting that the colonies provided the proper environments for mold and other decayed matter upon which the book louse feeds. As there is no significant water damage to the vellum, I cannot conclude any other source for these organic anomalies.
The inadequate liming, Dr. Gáribe unofficially posits in his cover letter, may have been a result of shortages of calcium oxide during the period, as most of mainland Europe (as well as the British Isles) had depleted its supplies treating the corpses of the victims of the various plague epidemics from the previous two centuries with quicklime in mass graves. It is impossible to determine precisely what sort of organisms could have survived in the poorly limed vellum, even if only for short periods. The book louse is, however, a better candidate than most.
It appears as if these gatherings are only the first four (excluding the missing final leaves from the fourth gathering) of a larger, no longer extant, number. A1b-B3b record, in two columns per page, French, Dutch, and Italian names, each apparently signed by its owner—or, perhaps, someone surviving the name-holder. B4a-D3b record not names but personal marks. It is impossible, of course, to determine if these signatories were merely mimicking what they already saw in the book when it came to them or if more literate community members decoded the pattern for them.
I join Dr. Gáribe in unofficially theorizing that if book lice survived and reproduced within the vellum itself, and if they carried the Yersinia pestis enterobacteria, the circulation of the book as a list of plague sufferers to be remembered would almost certainly itself have been a communicator of the bubonic plague, of which history records a general European resurgence in the early 1560s. In this sense, the documents would have kept themselves alive by spreading the plague that provided their meaning. Under these fantastic circumstances, the book louse, the Yersinia pestis, and the text all shared a common interest in perpetuation—even in the face of the best efforts to the contrary by the people actually facilitating their survival.
*
The Humours
Collation:
pot 8o: xA8 [$1 signed, xA signed as E by collator] 8 leaves, unnumbered [pp. 1-16] 190 mm X 140 mm (xA2a); 23 lines; xA8: English Cursiva; body 82; face 80 X 2: 3
[paper:] xA: chain 24-6 mm.; pot; pot MC
Title Page: xA1a
A Difcoverie of Curios Humour | AN AL
KEMICAL PAMPHLET | in Phlegmatic Ink | [rule 97 mm] | Printed by | The Metallers Companie, George Taylo, William Kenwick. 1627 | for the Worfhipful Companie of Stationers | The Humours | Phlegm
[last two lines handwritten: commensurate with non-italic type]
Bibliographer’s Notes:
This second segment of the collection, titled “The Humours: Phlegm” by the collator, fits its printing characteristics better than “Life.” The leaves in this gathering were printed from a sheet of pot paper (a French rarity, at the time, in early seventeenth-century England) bearing a dexter-facing pot watermark. The “MC” on the mark is, assumedly, an imposition the printers commissioned for their sheets. The paper itself has suffered some degree of decomposition, as evidenced by the sharp .25 mm relief of its chain lines. Unlike the vellum in “Life,” however, the leaves in “Phlegm” have not been artificially trimmed to mimic the conventions of another medium—they are the other medium of “Life”.
It appears that the entirety of the pamphlet is contained within the single 8o gathering of “Phlegm.” Its contents, printed for the Worshipful Company of Stationers, outline the alchemical philosophy behind (and practical creation of) waterproof ink. The authors (perhaps the printers Taylo and Kenwick themselves) lay out a simple ink recipe derived from hawthorne, the soot left by pine smoke, wine, and common oils; however, their recipe also includes “phlegm,” the humour that resists change and is associated with water. The author is not specific with the chemical makeup of “phlegm,” but it is clear by the tone of address that he or she is writing to an informed audience.
Dr. Gáribe’s second analysis reveals that exposure to water (he theorizes a flood) is to blame for the paper’s decomposition (appendix ii: 2f). However, Dr. Singlest (appendix iii) provides an alternative explanation. In 1625, her report explains, fire engines (crude things quite dissimilar to our contemporary devices) made their first appearances in London. Many seventeenth-century texts were lost not as a result of the fires that occasionally ravaged London; rather, the valiant, yet damaging, efforts of the fire brigade accelerated their decay. Most buildings burned too hot—therefore too quickly, Singlest explains—to cause widespread flash fire upon the texts in these unfortunate buildings. That the fires spread so quickly, Singlest explains, contributes to misconceptions about their durations.
Dr. Gáribe’s report reveals that, unlike the paper itself, the ink with which the pamphlet (or “Phlegm”) was printed is itself waterproof. Among its dyes and oils, the ink contains chemicals that bonded with the cellulose in the paper’s fibers. Much like “Life,” “Phlegm,” then, facilitates its own survival in the face of the accidentally deleterious enterprises of men. In this case, firefighting.
It bears noting that Singlest includes in her report that Abergavenny House (the locus of operations for the Worshipful Company of Stationers) burned down in the great fire of 1666. Among their reported losses, however, texts printed after 1627 numbered surprisingly few (cf. facsimile manifest, appendix iv).
Collation:
arms 16o: xA13 [$1 signed, xA signed as F by collator] 13 leaves, unnumbered [pp. 1-26]; 190 X 140 mm (xA2a) 23 lines; xA13: English Cursiva; body 82; face 80 X 2: 3
[paper] xA: chain 22-24 mm.; arms; arms of England
Title Page: xA1a
Embara∫∫ing the Fires | AN MONOGRAPH FOR PRINTERS | On the charming off the yellow bile for the publifhing of books | [rule 83 mm] | [image: London during the Great Fire, engraving, Visscher, 73 X 124 mm. (cf. facsimile ii)] | Enscombe Marque, Esq., and William Wurt, printers | 1674 | The Humours | Yellow Bile
[last two lines handwritten: commensurate with non-italic type]
(facsimile ii, London during the Great Fire, Visscher, engraving)
Bibliographer’s Notes:
It is difficult to tell, without disassembling the binding of the overall collation, whether or not “Yellow Bile” and “Phlegm” were first collated as a single brochure before being later sewn into the overall collection. However, since the contents of both concern themselves with two of the four classical humours, I consider the issue highly probable. The contents of “Yellow Bile” (the humour associated with the element of fire) were printed on a sheet of arms paper bearing 22-24 mm chain lines (N.B., these do not exhibit the same characteristics of decay as found in “Phlegm”). The gathering also contains the “arms of England” watermark, which is understood to have first appeared in the printing trade during the year that “Yellow Bile” was printed: 1674. The engraving that appears (in a double-rule frame) on the title page later appears in Robert Chambers’s well-known Book of Days, first edition. It is impossible to tell if the image’s appearance in Marque’s and Wurt’s pamphlet inspired Chambers’s usage or if the matter is merely coincidence.
The material within “Yellow Bile” concerns itself with the production and use of “fire-embarassing” paper. Marque and Wurt paraphrase “historical documents” (from which they do not quote directly) detailing the drawing of fiber from sheets of glass and then arranging these fibers into flexible sheets that, when woven into at least 30% pulped fiber, can be printed upon. When queried, Dr. Gáribe theorized that, even should all of the pulp combust, the residual ink-content remaining upon the un-burned fiberglass could be sufficient to re-create a document’s original text (appendix ii: 3a). Furthermore, he concludes, it is unlikely that the destruction of all 30% of the pulped fiber would compromise the integrity of the fiberglass sufficiently to completely destroy the “paper.” Since the ink with which “Yellow Bile” was printed matches the ink from “Phlegm” in chemical composition, I am led to conclude that the inclusion of the pulped fiber in the “paper” was simply to provide the cellulose necessary for the “phlegmatic ink” to achieve its permanency, the fiberglass, of course, lacking this itself. In this regard, Marque’s and Wurt’s “embarrassing” paper would offer printers” texts protection both from fire and the water used later to douse it. Without an example to consult, I am unable to conclude whether or not only 30% of the text (assuming the other 70% of the inked material as having run from the fiberglass in the event of a dousing) would be sufficient to re-create the text’s intended content. It should have been enough, I am convinced, to paraphrase and redact, however, enabling printers to offer, in the worst-case scenario, a close approximation of the documents ruined by a fire brigade’s noble efforts.
I find it easy to deduce the reasons behind Marque’s and Wurt’s anxieties given the proximity of their pamphlet’s printing to the great fires that ravaged London in 1666. Singlest replied, when queried, (appendix iii:8b) that the sheer size of the real estate involved in the Great Fire resulted in longer-smoldering flames (fed by the super-heated thermals created by such a confluence of burning architecture) that, theoretically, could have induced flashfire upon any purely fiber-based documents in close enough proximity.
*
Man
Collation:
foolscap, 4o: xA4 [$1 signed, xA signed as G by collator] 4 leaves, unnumbered [pp. 1-8]; 190 X 140 mm (xA2a) 20 lines; xA4: Caslon’s Roman, leaded / Bangla handscript; body 88; face 86 X 4: 5
[paper] xA: chain 25-29 mm.; foolscap; no mark
Title Page: xA1a
PAPER STEWE | কাগজ, পত্রিকা খায়া | [rule 86 mm.] | A Recipee | Printed for The Sifter∫ of Our Ladie of Greater Peace | by Abraham Gould, London 1767 | [rule 85 mm.] [image: “Cover page of ‘The Life of the Virgin Mary’,” woodcut (cropped). Albrecht Dürer, 1511, 85 X 75 mm. Copperplate frame, 102 X 95 mm. (cf. facsimile iii)] | [rule 85 mm.] | for the relief of Beengal famine | “Man,” handwritten: commensurate with non-italic type
(facsimile iii, “Cover Page of ‘The Life of the Virgin Mary’,” woodcut. Albrecht Dürer, 1511)
Bibliographer’s Notes:
This segment of the collection, titled “Paper Stewe” (the accompanying Bangla title transliterates as “Paper Eat,” a poor translation according to Anima Nandwani (cf. appendix v)), details a recipe f
or the cleaning and softening of pulp paper for human consumption, ostensibly (as evidenced by the prioress’s prayer printed on xA1b) to relieve the famine that had beset the Bengali region in 1766, where, according to Dr. Nandwani (appendix v: 9b), the priory of the Sisters of Our Lady of Greater Peace was (and still is) located. Perhaps the most salient feature of this pamphlet is its bilingual nature: beginning with xA1b, the verso of each leaf details the “paper stewe” recipe and outlines appropriate prayers of thanksgiving in Caslon’s 1728 leaded, Roman type; the recto of each successive leaf offers a translation of the same in handscript Bangla. This leads me to believe that the distribution of the pamphlet would have been limited, given the time involved in the Bangla translation and the limits of the time frame within which the Sisters would have wanted to get their text into general circulation to be of use to those suffering as a result of the famine.
The text itself appears on unremarkable foolscap 4o leaves. The title page contains the boss of the Sisters of Our Lady of Greater Peace in a period copperplate frame: Dürer’s original woodcut cover image for the 1511 printing of “The Life of the Virgin Mary.” Dr. Nandwani reports that she was unable to find any extant records detailing either the success or the failure of the Sisters’ campaign to alleviate famine by encouraging its sufferers to consume what printed materials they could find. Dr. Gáribe’s chemical analysis of this pamphlet (appendix ii: 4c) titled “Man” by the collection’s collator, reveals that the ink contains high traces of lead, perhaps communicated by the type itself. In any event, consuming this particular book would have been, to say the least, unpleasant.